CBD 2026: Lectio Divina (Becoming Chanting), Dental Floss, and AI: How Contemplation Happens and Why It Matters When Your Intelligence Is Not Artificial with Carmen Acevedo Butcher, PhD

Lectio divina, or “sacred reading,” and dyslexia are word siblings, as lectio and dyslexia both come from the ancient root *leg- “to collect or gather.” As someone with dyslexia and as a survivor of trauma, Carmen has found the ancient monastic practice of steeping in sacred texts an always accessible, lifelong balm for collecting and connecting with her inner wholeness and resting in her gentlest Self. Carmen often finds this practice leads to chanting as she walks through the marsh. Following an introduction, Carmen will lead a guided group lectio divina practice. Award-winning translator, author, poet, teacher, and contemplative workshop leader, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, PhD, is core faculty and Dean at the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC), founded by Father Richard Rohr. Her translation for Shambhala Publications of The Cloud of Unknowing received a 46th Georgia Author of the Year Award. Martin Laird calls her translation of Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence “the new standard,” and it was selected for the Spirituality & Practice Best Books List. At the University of Georgia she earned an MA and a PhD in Medieval Studies, and as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of London, she worked with monastic manuscripts in London and Oxbridge libraries and translated homilies by the tenth-century Benedictine abbot, Ælfric of Eynsham, published as God of Mercy: Ælfric’s Sermons and Theology (Mercer University Press). Carmen has been interviewed on the BBC World Service The Compass, NPR Morning Edition, Center for Action and Contemplation’s Everything Belongs, Learning How To See, and Turning to the Mystics, and many other podcasts. She teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, in the College Writing Programs, she is on Substack with her friends James Finley and Brian McLaren at the CAC's Letters From Outside the Camp, and she is often found in the marsh chanting Psalm 46:10 in Old English. This session is part of the FREE Contemplation by Design Summit, Oct. 14-25, 2026. This iPause Guided Practice session will extend the knowledge and skills provided during Carmen's keynote luecture titled “Brief as an Atom”: The Cloud’s and the Friar’s “Easy” Contemplative Practices for Befriending Joy in an Age of AI Rage, on Sunday Oct. 18, from 7:00-8:15pm. You are welcome to join one or both of Carmen's sessions in the Contemplation by Design Summit. The full summit schedule is posted at: https://med.stanford.edu/contemplation/summit.html.